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Meet the man offering you the ultimate immersive audio experience

Malvern Audio Research founder Mark Manwaring-White is inviting you into his world of sound. When’s good for you?

The horn-loaded tweeter on the Universum speaker, designed to radiate the treble evenly

Try before you buy

Mark has created an audiogeek’s paradise that simply has to be seen (and heard) to be believed.

When you arrive at Mark’s home in picturesque Malvern, nothing quite prepares you for what lies in wait. A friendly face beckons you along a corridor, and at the end of it is the room where it all happens. Mark’s studio is a celebration of his eccentricity, and genuine passion for unbeatable sound.

“you realise that you have never actually heard your favourite song before”

Sit in the hot seat, positioned intentionally in the middle of the room so you are totally surrounded by sound, and if you’ve got the time, he will gladly spend hours playing you all your favourite songs on his gorgeous valve-based sound systems. And it’s only then that you realise that you have never actually heard your favourite song before. Every hidden nuance is suddenly clear as day, every backing vocal, every secret guitar part that probably took a whole day to record. If you’re considering purchasing a serious bit of kit, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable way to do it.

Contact Mark

Contact Mark

Mark set up Malvern Audio Research in 2011 and since then has acted as an importer, distributor and retailer for some of the most well-regarded brands in the audio industry, including: Ming Da, the Chinese manufacturer of high end valve amplifiers; Audio Detail, Mark's own brand of phono stages and digital-to-analogue converters (DACs) along with specialist pre and power amplifiers; and hORNS, a Polish company that hand-builds some truly remarkable-looking loudspeakers.

“What all these brands have in common is a painstaking attention to detail”

What all these brands have in common is a painstaking attention to detail, and an absolute obsession with delivering the best possible sound to the listener. If you haven’t got time to go and see Mark, you can read a bit more about them below.

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Ming Da

All hand-built and based on valve technology.

Valve amps, which used to be the norm, fell out of favour in the 60s, 70s and 80s largely because modern transistor amps were less bulky, sleeker looking and more reliable. But valve technology has moved on over the past few decades, and with today's more compact, more reliable valves, valve amplification is increasingly back in vogue among audiophiles in the know.

The current Ming Da range includes pre, power and integrated valve amplifiers, as well as phono stages and headphone amps. Prices for integrated amps start at £999.00 for the new compact integrated Piccolo PP, and rise to £4,125 for the top-of-the-range, 110W per channel Dynasty Cadenza Grande.

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Audio Detail

Malvern Audio Research doesn't just sell valve equipment, though: it makes its own, too.

Mark set up Audio Detail in 2014 with the express purpose of building valve-based phono stages and DACs to go with the amps he sells, and Ming Da was so impressed with the results that it asked him to get involved with designing the phono stages on its own amps! Audio Detail's current range includes the £995 NV-06 and £1,895 NV-08 phono stages, and the Chela pre amp at £1100, a unique Nuvistor DAC, the new very special Directly heated Triode pre amps and power amps, aimed at the perfectionist.

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Malvern Audio Research

Malvern Audio Research has a wide range of high-end hi-fi products to choose from.

With hORNS speakers ranging from a comparatively affordable £2,500 to a whopping £27,000 (for a pair of the flagship three-way Universum speakers), plus amplifiers from both Audio Detail and Ming da UK, cables by Albedo, valves by KR Audio, power conditioners by GigaWatt and more besides, Malvern Audio Research has a wide range of high-end hi-fi products to choose from, whether you visit its showrooms in Great Malvern or one of the half-dozen accredited dealers across the UK. The team is more than happy to show the equipment off and you're welcome to take along your own music to audition the systems. Who knows, you might just hear something in a favourite track you've never heard before – and that feeling, as we said at the start, is priceless.

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“You might just hear something in a favourite track you've never heard before – and that feeling is priceless.”